It’s clear that most media apologies these days (witness the Rush Limbaugh non-apology) are not about acknowledging wrong, but instead attempting to tamp down a media fire. In many cases, the “apology” actually reinforces the original slight or suggests the offender was more sorry about getting caught for their behavior than the behavior itself.
All of which suggests you’re right; apologies — at the media level — are only made when the consequences outweigh the pain of an apology, even when those apologies are anything but.
It raises the question: who was Mr. Limbaugh really apologizing to? His sponsors? His audience? (I’m skeptical that the person he actually insulted was particularly high on his list.) “Media apologies” have become such a ritual that they are by and large meaningless anymore. I think that’s because the public spotlight introduces a high level of abstraction that turns what should be a private, individualized, and emotionally freighted transaction into a public, generic, and heartlessly calculated one.
So how would this all have gone down had there been no public spotlight? Would Mr. Limbaugh have apologized personally to Ms. Fluke? I speculate probably not, because his position traditionally affords him greater immunity to the consequences of his comments.
So: the public spotlight, like the law, can be a powerful leveler in that it can compel the powerful to redress improprieties against the less-powerful. But unlike the law (or most law?), the redress itself is treated with suspicion because it is assumed to be disingenuous. Therefore it has no value.
But it makes for good TV. Panem et circenses.
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It’s clear that most media apologies these days (witness the Rush Limbaugh non-apology) are not about acknowledging wrong, but instead attempting to tamp down a media fire. In many cases, the “apology” actually reinforces the original slight or suggests the offender was more sorry about getting caught for their behavior than the behavior itself.
All of which suggests you’re right; apologies — at the media level — are only made when the consequences outweigh the pain of an apology, even when those apologies are anything but.
It raises the question: who was Mr. Limbaugh really apologizing to? His sponsors? His audience? (I’m skeptical that the person he actually insulted was particularly high on his list.) “Media apologies” have become such a ritual that they are by and large meaningless anymore. I think that’s because the public spotlight introduces a high level of abstraction that turns what should be a private, individualized, and emotionally freighted transaction into a public, generic, and heartlessly calculated one.
So how would this all have gone down had there been no public spotlight? Would Mr. Limbaugh have apologized personally to Ms. Fluke? I speculate probably not, because his position traditionally affords him greater immunity to the consequences of his comments.
So: the public spotlight, like the law, can be a powerful leveler in that it can compel the powerful to redress improprieties against the less-powerful. But unlike the law (or most law?), the redress itself is treated with suspicion because it is assumed to be disingenuous. Therefore it has no value.
But it makes for good TV. Panem et circenses.